COASTING.
The current was now losing its power, and Godfrey, dipping his hand into
the water and then putting it to his lips, found that it was distinctly
brackish, and congratulated himself upon having laid in a stock of water
when he did. After Luka had slept for six hours, Godfrey roused him.
"Now, Luka, you must take my place and steer; move very carefully else
we shall capsize her. That is it. Now, if there is any change you lean
forward and touch me; I shall wake in a moment. If the sail should shift
over to the other side all you have got to do is to shift this sheet to
its fastening on that side. With this light wind jibing does not matter
at all, but if the wind freshens wake me at once."
For a quarter of an hour Godfrey watched to see that Luka steered
steadily, then he worked himself down in the cockpit and closed his
eyes. It did not seem to him that he had been asleep long when Luka
touched him.
"I would not have woke you," Luka said; "but the land seems going right
away from us."
Godfrey sat up. "So it is, Luka! I should not be surprised if that is
the extreme northern point. Of course it may be only a deep bay, but at
any rate we must see." He looked at his watch, "Why, I have been asleep
nearly seven hours. Now, Luka, you had better haul the boat alongside,
and see about cooking. We forgot to try those onions yesterday. Cut one
up small and put it in the pan with the meat. By the by, you had better
tie a piece of cord to those four bears' hams, and let them tow
overboard for two or three hours. The water must be quite salt now, and
when you take them out we will rub a little fresh salt into them. They
ought to keep well then."
As soon as Luka had got into the boat--Jack jumping in with him, as he
always made a point of superintending the cooking operations--Godfrey
took his place in the stern, jibed the sail, which had before been on
the port quarter, over to starboard, brought her head somewhat to the
north of west, and hauled in the sheet. Lying over till the water nearly
touched her gunwale, the light little craft would have gone speedily
along had it not been for the drag of the boat astern. This, however,
towed lightly, for she was loaded with but a very small proportion of
the weight she would carry. Godfrey judged, by the objects on the shore,
that they could not be going along less than three miles an hour. In six
hours the land trended away due south, and he knew that they had now
reached the first of the two deep bays they would have to pass before
reaching the northern extremity of the Cape. He kept on his course, and
an hour later, with the exception of the low coast nearly astern, no
land was to be seen. Luka, who was paddling steadily, looked round. He
had such implicit confidence in his companion that he was quite sure the
boat was keeping the right course, but he had a vague sense of
uneasiness at seeing nothing but sea around him.
"How do you know which way to go?" he asked.
"I know that by keeping on the same way we were going past the last
land, we shall strike the coast again on the other side of this bay. I
think it is twenty or thirty miles across. I can tell the way by the
wind in the first place, and in the second place by the position of the
sun. You see it is over my right shoulder at present; there is the mark
of my shadow on the side. I have got to keep it about there, making some
allowance for the change in the position of the sun."
Luka understood this. "But suppose the wind was to change?" he said.
"I should know it by the position of the sun. You see at present it
comes nearly due south, and is blowing almost straight towards the sun;
but if it were very cloudy, or at night when I could not see the sun, I
should not be able to tell. Then after holding on till I felt sure that
we were well past the mouth of this bay, I should put her about on the
other tack, and should be sure to come upon the land sooner or later.
Anyhow, even in the darkest night we should know if the wind had gone
round to the north, as it would be so much colder. Besides, there is
never a great shift of wind like that without knowing it; the one wind
is sure to drop, and there would be something like a dead calm before
the other set in. Anyhow, with a bright sun and a steady wind like this
we cannot go wrong, and you will see land ahead in seven or eight
hours."
It was less than six hours when Godfrey saw the low land ahead, and they
were presently coasting along it again with the wind free, for they were
now running but little to the west of north. Thirty miles farther there
was another break in the coast.
"That was a first-rate map I made the tracing from," Godfrey said; "the
coast-line is most accurately marked. Now we have another run of about
the same distance as the last, then there is about fifty miles almost
due north, then we shall be round this other Cape."
They made the passage safely across, although it took them longer than
the first, for the wind dropped lighter, and they had both to use their
paddles.
"We have just done it in time, Luka, and that is all. If we had been
half an hour later there would be nothing for it but to anchor. Look at
that white cloud on the water; that is a fog; we are only just in time.
I am heading for that cove. Paddle hard, Luka, or it will be on us now
before we get there."
They had just entered the cove, which was forty or fifty feet wide, and
ran as many yards into the land, when the fog rolled over them.
"It is like a wet blanket," Godfrey said; "it is thirty or forty degrees
colder than it was a minute back. Paddle very slowly and carefully now,
Luka, and dip your paddle deeply in. I want to go as far up this creek
as I can; but I don't want to run ashore."
Very gently they paddled on until Godfrey felt the ground at a depth of
about three feet. "That will do nicely," he said. "Now I will drop the
anchor over."
The anchor was one of Ostjak manufacture. It consisted of a long, flat,
narrow stone weighing about six pounds; to each of the flat sides were
lashed two pieces of fir, about an inch and a half in diameter. They
projected a few inches below the stone, and were cut off just below a
branch of about an inch in diameter and eight or ten inches long. These
branches, when growing, bent downwards and slanted at an angle closely
resembling that of the fluke of an anchor with the upright. The whole,
therefore, was an excellent imitation of an anchor with four flukes, two
on each side, the stone serving as a weight. This was thrown out of the
bow of the canoe, and a couple of fathoms of line let out. Then Godfrey
hauled up the larger boat and fastened it alongside. They could just
make out the outline of the shore about fifteen feet on either side of
them.
"We must take to our fur jackets again, Luka; my teeth are chattering,
and after working as hard as we have been doing for the last three or
four hours it won't do to get a chill. I am as hungry as a hunter; we
had breakfast at five o'clock by my watch, and it is three now."
Luka soon lit the fire in the boat. The provisions in the canoe had
been finished two days before, as they had been obliged to throw
overboard what they had not eaten owing to its having become unfit for
use. The food, however, wrapped up in furs in the boat was still solidly
frozen. They cut a couple of fish out of the mass and placed them in the
frying-pan; stuck a wooden skewer through some pieces of bear's meat and
held them in the flame, and hung the bear's hams, as they did each time
they cooked, in the smoke of the fire.
"We must try to get some more fish next time we set sail, Luka. I am
sure we passed through several shoals of fish by the swirling of the
water."
It was thirty-six hours before the fog cleared off, swept away by a
south-westerly wind. As they had nothing to do but to eat and sleep
during this time, they got up their anchor and hoisted their sail the
moment the fog cleared off, and in eighteen hours reached the sharp
point of the Cape. Rounding this, Godfrey said:
"Now, Luka, we are at the mouth of the Gulf of Obi. It is nearly two
hundred miles, according to this map, to the opposite side, and we
daren't try to make that; besides, the wind has been getting more to the
west and would be right in our teeth, for you see by this tracing the
opposite point of land is a good bit to the south of west. There is
nothing for it but for us to keep along this shore for something like a
hundred and fifty miles. We can lay our course well with this wind. The
gulf won't be more than eighty miles wide there, and we can strike
across and coast down the opposite bank. It seems a long way round, but
we shall do it as quickly as we should beating right across in the teeth
of this wind. I doubt if we could do that at all with this craft behind
us."
Fortunately the wind was not high, or they could not have ventured out,
as a heavy swell would have set in from the other side of the gulf.
They kept their course within half a mile of the shore.
"What are those black things on that low point?" Godfrey asked. "I can
hear them barking. They must be tremendously big dogs, if they are
dogs."
"They are seals," Luka said; "they go right up the rivers in summer, and
the Samoyedes and Yuruks kill great numbers on the coast. They eat the
flesh and sell the teeth for ivory."
"Well, we don't want them at present," Godfrey said; "but if we fall
short of food we will see whether we can kill some. At present the great
thing is to get on."
Night and day the canoe kept on her way. Except when Godfrey was asleep
Luka did not steer, for he did not like the management of the sail,
especially now that the boat at times heeled over a great deal with the
beam wind. He himself took his sleep by fits and starts two or three
hours at a time, and except when cooking, paddled away assiduously.
Twice Godfrey was lucky enough to bring down some ducks when a flock
swept past the boat within shot. They had, too, a supply of fresh fish,
for Godfrey now always had two lines out towing astern, with some white
geese feathers fastened to the hooks as bait. Ordinarily they caught
nothing, but they passed through several large shoals of fish, and at
these times they pulled them out as fast as they could haul in and let
go the lines, sometimes bringing in three or four at a time, as there
were six hooks on each line. These fish were herrings, and they formed a
welcome change. Luka had never seen one before, for although they
penetrate for some distance up the great rivers, they never ascend to
the upper waters. Jack, too, benefited greatly, for of late he had been
kept on somewhat short rations, as they had now been reduced to the four
half-cured bear's hams and a comparatively small stock of frozen food.
On the fifth day after rounding the cape the wind, which had been
gradually getting lighter, dropped altogether, and for the next two days
both of them worked steadily with their paddles.
"We must have made a good two hundred miles," Godfrey said; "and we
could safely venture to strike across in such quiet weather as this, but
there is a river marked on the chart as coming in somewhere here, and I
want to find it if I can. There is water enough for another week, but it
begins to taste horribly of skin, and besides that it has a considerable
mixture of ashes. I am sure we must be very close to it; indeed,
according to my calculation of two hundred miles, we ought to have
passed it already. Anyhow, we will keep on until we get there."
Godfrey was not far out, for late in the day they saw an opening of some
fifty yards wide in the bank. They at once made for it, and entering it,
paddled along as near the bank as they could go to avoid the current.
Godfrey tasted the water from time to time, and after paddling for two
hours pronounced it perfectly sweet.
"We will land here, Luka. I am sure we both want to stretch our limbs a
bit and have a rest. Look about for a good place to land; the banks are
too steep to be able to get the big canoe up, but we can carry the
other--it is light enough now."
They presently found a place where a portion of the bank had fallen in
and left a gap. Here they landed, moored the large canoe to the shore
and carried the other up the bank. An exclamation of pleasure broke from
Godfrey at the wide expanse of bright green dotted with flowers. Jack
was exuberant in his delight, circling round and round like a wild
thing, barking loudly and occasionally throwing himself down to roll.
The two paddles were driven firmly into the ground, the sail unlaced
from the yard, which was lashed to the paddles as a ridge-pole, over
which the sail was thrown. The furs were taken out of the boat and
spread in the tent.
"We will have a cup of tea, Luka, and then turn in for twelve hours'
sleep. I am sure we deserve it."
After a long rest they woke thoroughly refreshed; then, while Luka was
lighting a fire, Godfrey went down to the river, stripped, and had a
short swim, the water being too cold to permit his stopping more than
two or three minutes in it. When they had had breakfast he said:
"Now, Luka, do you go down to the boat, take the firewood out, and then
sluice the boat thoroughly with water and get it perfectly clean. By the
time you have done that I shall be back, and we will then lift her out
of the water and turn her bottom upwards to dry thoroughly. Then we will
melt down some of that bear fat we saved and give her a thorough rubbing
with it. But we will leave that job until to-morrow; it will take
four-and-twenty hours for her to dry. I am going out with my gun to see
what I can shoot. The whole place seems full of birds, though they are
mostly small ones; still I might come across something better. You had
better keep Jack with you."
Godfrey's expedition was not a very successful one. He brought back four
grouse and a dozen small birds, which he had killed with a single shot,
firing into the thick of a flock that flew by overhead. The grouse were
roasted for dinner, and Godfrey found to his satisfaction that Luka had
baked a pile of cakes, this being the first time they had tasted bread
for a fortnight, as it demanded more time and attention than they could
spare to it in the boat. Luka told him that several flights of black
duck had passed up the river while he had been at work at the boat, and
volunteered to grease the boat next day if Godfrey would try to get a
shot at them.
"It will be of no use my trying to shoot them on the river," Godfrey
said, "as I should have no means of picking them up; and I can tell you
I found the water too cold this morning to care about stripping and
swimming out for them. I will have another try on the plain. I saw four
or five deer to-day, but only the first passed within shot, and as I had
not a bullet in the gun he got off without my firing at him. I will try
to-morrow if I can't stalk one."
Accordingly the next day Godfrey set out. After an hour's walking he saw
three deer. He worked round very cautiously so as to get a clump of
bushes between him and them, and then crawled up to it and looked
through. They were a hundred and fifty yards away, and he had no
confidence in his gun at that distance. He stood for some time thinking,
and then remembered he had read that on the American plains the deer
were often decoyed into coming close up to the hunter by working upon
their curiosity. He drew his ramrod out from his gun, put the cap he
wore--which was the fur one with tails--on to the end of it, pushed this
through the bushes, and began to wave it to and fro. The deer caught
sight of it immediately, and stood staring at it for a minute or two,
ready to bound away should the strange object seem to threaten danger.
As nothing came of it, they began to move towards it slowly and with
hesitation, until they gathered in a group at a distance of not more
than fifty yards.
Godfrey, while waving the cap with one hand, was holding his gun in
readiness with the other. Feeling sure that he could not miss the mark
now, he gently lowered the cap and raised his gun to his shoulder.
Slight as was the movement it startled the deer; but as they turned to
fly he fired both barrels at the shoulder of the one nearest to him, and
had the satisfaction of seeing it fall, while its companions dashed away
over the plain. He ran up to the fallen animal and found that it was
already dead, both bullets having struck it in the region of the heart.
He proceeded to cut off the head and the lower part of the legs, opened
and cleaned it, and was then able to lift it on to his shoulder. As he
neared the tent Jack came tearing along to meet him with loud barks of
welcome.
"Yes, I have got food for you for some time, Jack, though it does not
seem to me that you do much to earn it."
Luka was at work greasing the boat. Godfrey called him up on to the
bank.
"We must try and do something to preserve the meat, Luka."
"Shall we rub it with salt, Godfrey?"
"We can spare some salt, but not much. It would never do to be left
without that. We can do well enough without bread, but we can't do
without salt."
"Smoke it well," Luka said.
"We might try that, but I am afraid those hams are beginning to go."
"Not smoke enough, Godfrey."
"No, I suppose not."
"They must have plenty, lots of smoke."
"Well, there is plenty of wood to make smoke with."
"We must keep it close," Luka said. "We ought to smoke it for two days."
"We can keep it close enough by cutting some poles and making a circular
tent with the sail. It will spoil its whiteness, but that is of no great
consequence. You had better leave the boat for the present, Luka, and
come with me and cut poles and boughs for the fire."
Taking hatchets they started out and presently cut eight poles ten feet
long.
"Now which is the best wood for smoking it with?"
"Pine makes the best smoke next to oak."
"There are plenty of stunted pines about, and I should think some of
this aromatic shrub with it would be good. I will make up two big
bundles of that, and we will take them and the poles back first; then we
will cut some pine boughs."
As all these were obtained within a few hundred yards of the camp, they
had soon materials for their fire. The poles were then stuck in a circle
and lashed together at the top, the sail taken down and wrapped round
it. It was not large enough, but by adding the storm-sail and the hide
of the deer the covering was made complete. Then a number of sticks were
tied from pole to pole across it. The deer-flesh was then cut up into
strips of about a foot long, three or four inches wide, and half an inch
thick; and these were hung over the sticks until the whole of the deer
was so disposed of. The three remaining bear's hams were also hung up,
and a fire of the pine-wood was then with some difficulty lighted and
some of the sweet-smelling shrub laid on it. Godfrey, who had undertaken
this part of the business while Luka went back to the boat, crawled out
from the tent almost blinded.
"By Jove!" he said as he closed the aperture, "if it is as bad as that
now that it is only just lighted, the meat ought to be smoked as dry as
a chip by to-morrow."
Godfrey had nothing to do now but to watch the smoke rising from the
opening at the top of the tent, opening the entrance a little whenever
it slackened, drawing the sticks together with the iron ramrod, and
throwing on a fresh armful of the fuel. Having finished greasing the
boat, Luka did the same to the canoe. They spent the next twenty-four
hours in alternately sleeping, collecting drift-wood on the river-bank,
and attending to the fire, which had to be watched carefully, and some
dry splinters added from time to time to get the green wood to keep
alight. Every hour or two a piece of meat was taken out and examined,
and in thirty hours from the time of lighting the fire Luka pronounced
that it was done. The strips had shrivelled to half their former
thickness and were almost black in colour.
"They will give us plenty of work for our teeth, Luka," Godfrey said.
"They look almost like shoe-leather, but perhaps they will be better
than they look. I once tasted some smoked reindeer tongues--at least
they called them reindeer tongues, but I do not suppose they were--and
they were first-rate. Now there is nothing more to do; let us get ready
for another start."
The sail was taken off and the poles chopped into five-feet lengths.
"We will lay them in the bottom of the boat, Luka, four longways and
four crossways. As there are sixteen of them, that will make the top
line five or six inches above the floor. Then we will lay our firewood
on them. In that way it won't get wet with the water, and, what is quite
as important, it won't dirty the water."
This was done. The flour and deer's flesh were stowed on similar
platforms fore and aft of the firewood and covered with skins. Some
twelve buckets of water were then baled in. What remained of the frozen
provisions was inspected; but it was agreed that as it had already
melted a good deal, it would not be eatable much longer, and as they had
food enough to last for some time, it was of no use keeping it. It was
therefore broken up, Jack was allowed to eat as much as he wanted, and
the rest was left. When everything was packed the canoe was carried down
and placed in the water, and they took their places; Jack jumped on
board, and a fresh start was made.
As soon as they emerged from the small river, they struck out straight
from the land. The wind was light and from the north, and both took
their paddles. Their four days' rest had done them good, and the canoe,
under the influence of sail and oar, went fast through the water.
"Twenty-four hours ought to take us across," Godfrey said. "The gulf
looks from eighty to ninety miles across at the point where the river
runs into it. We must head rather to the south, for there is sure to be
a current out in the middle, as the Obi is a big river."
It was, however, thirty hours before they reached the opposite
shore--Godfrey accounting for the difference on the supposition that the
stream must have been a good deal stronger than they expected, and must
have drifted them down a long way. They found, indeed, that even inshore
they were passing the land at a rate of nearly two miles an hour.
"That is all the better, Luka, for with this north wind our sail will be
no good to us. We may as well get it down at once and stow it. The
shores are muddy, I see; so we shall not hurt the canoe if we should
drift up against it. That is a comfort, for we can both go to sleep. I
am sure, after thirty hours' paddling with only two or three long
easies, we deserve a rest. First of all we must have a meal. One does
not know whether to call it dinner or supper when there is no night and
we sleep just when we are tired."
They had caught eight or ten fish as they came across, passing through a
great shoal of herrings. In half an hour the kettle was boiling over the
fire, the fish were hissing and crackling in the frying-pan over it, and
a strip of deer's flesh, with the ramrod run through it, was frizzling.
It was pronounced excellent. There was a slight aromatic bitterness that
gave a zest and flavour to it, and the flesh inside was by no means so
tough as Godfrey had expected to find it. When all three of the voyagers
had satisfied their hunger, the brands were as usual extinguished, the
embers thrown overboard; then returning to the canoe, they lay down,
and were in a very few minutes fast asleep. They slept for six hours,
and when they woke the land was no longer in sight.
"It is lucky there is no fog," Godfrey said, "and that we have the sun
to act as a compass. We can't be many miles out. We won't make straight
for shore, Luka; we will head about north-west, so as to edge in
gradually. There must be a good deal of current here, and it will be
helping us along."
In an hour the low line of coast was visible, and they then headed still
more to the north.
"There must be a good three-mile-an-hour current here," Godfrey observed
presently. "We are going along first-rate past the shore. It took us
over five days to come up. At this rate we shall go down in two."
They paddled steadily for twelve hours, stopping once only to cook a
meal. Then they went close inshore again, had supper, and slept. When
they woke they found they were still within a mile of the shore, and the
current was now taking them along no more than a mile an hour.
"The gulf must be wide here, Luka. I don't think we should gain anything
by going out four or five miles farther, so we will keep about as we
are. We ought to be at the point by the end of to-day's work. We were
two hundred miles up. I expect we drifted down five-and-twenty miles in
crossing, and we must have passed the land at a good five miles an hour
yesterday; so that we ought not to be more than thirty or forty miles
from the point, for this peninsula does not go as far north as the other
by twenty or thirty miles."
After eight hours' paddling they found themselves at the mouth of a deep
bay.
"That is all right," Godfrey said, examining his tracing. "That land on
the farther side of the bay is the northern point of the gulf. We will
paddle across there and anchor by the shore for to-night. To-morrow we
shall have a long paddle, for it is seventy or eighty miles nearly due
west to a sheltered bay that lies just this side of Cape Golovina. Once
round that, we have nearly four hundred miles to go nearly due south
into Kara Bay. This long tongue of land we are working round is called
the Yamal Peninsula. Once fairly down into Kara Bay, we shall leave
Siberia behind us, and the land will be Russia."
They struck across the bay, and landed under shelter of the cape. The
land was higher here than any they had before met; and after their sleep
Godfrey took his gun, accompanied by Jack, and ascended the hill.
"It is rum," he said to himself, as he gazed over the wide expanse of
sea to the north, "that this should be one sheet of ice in the winter. I
do not like the look of those clouds away to the north. I think we are
going to have either a fog or a gale. We won't make a move till we see.
This coast seems rocky, and it won't do to make along it unless we have
settled weather."
He returned and told Luka, and then wandered away again, as he had seen
that birds were very plentiful, and he returned in three hours to the
boat with a dozen grouse, six ptarmigan, and a capercailzie. Godfrey was
now a good shot, and the birds, never having been disturbed by the
approach of man, were so tame that he had no difficulty whatever in
making a bag. As he went down to the boat he congratulated himself that
they had not made a start, for the sky was now overcast, and the wind
was already blowing strongly.
"We will have some bread to-day, Luka. These birds deserve something to
eat with them, and our flour is holding out well. We have not eaten
above twenty pounds since we started. I wish we had some yeast or
something to make it rise. By the by I have an idea. Don't mix that
till I come back, Luka."
Here, as when he landed on the Yenesei, he had seen numbers of rough
nests on the ground, the birds being so tame that they often did not fly
off even when he passed quite close to them. He returned to a spot where
he had seen these nests quite thick, and had no difficulty in collecting
a large number of little eggs of a great variety of colour.
"I expect about two out of every three are bad," he said. "We shall have
to break them singly to find out the good ones. Fancy making a cake of
sparrows' eggs!"
Upon breaking them he found that not more than one in five was good.
Still there were quite enough for the purpose. The frying-pan was used
as a basin, and in this he made a sort of batter of eggs and flour. By
the time he had done this four of the grouse were nearly roasted. He
poured the batter into the empty kettle, melted some deer's fat in the
pan, and then poured in the batter again. Then he washed out and filled
the kettle, and placed it upon the fire.
"Now, by the time the water is boiling, Luka, the batter and the grouse
will be cooked. That is what we call a Yorkshire pudding at home; it
will go splendidly with the birds."
The pudding turned out really good, and they enjoyed the meal immensely,
Jack having the bones of the four birds for his share, together with the
solitary fish they had caught the day before. By the time they had
finished they were glad to get up their tent, which they pitched with
the entrance close to the fire, for even in the sheltered spot where
they were fierce gusts of cold wind swept down upon them. The canvas of
the tent was fastened down by heavy stones placed upon it, the furs
brought in, and everything made snug. For three days the storm raged.
"It is a nuisance losing so much time," Godfrey said. "It was somewhere
about the middle of June when we started, and there are only three
months of open weather here. Every day is of importance. I sha'n't so
much mind when we get to the mouth of the Petchora, for I heard from one
of the Russians in the prison that canoes often go as far as that from
Archangel to trade, so I shall feel when I get there that we are getting
into civilized regions. It is about four hundred miles from Kara Bay, so
that we have a good eight hundred miles to travel before we get there.
We can certainly paddle forty miles a day by sticking to it steadily;
but allowing for another stoppage of four days, and we can't allow less
than that, that will be a fortnight. How long have we been now, Luka?
There is nothing to count time from."
Luka shook his head.
"Well, it is somewhere above three weeks," Godfrey went on; "so that by
the time we get to the mouth of the Petchora, it will be the last week
in July. That will give us a couple of months; but I fancy we can't
count much on the weather in September. Still, if the canoes go from
Archangel to Petchora and back, we ought to be able to do it from
Petchora, for the distance from there to Archangel is a good deal less
than from the mouth of the Yenesei to the Petchora. There is one thing,
if the weather gets very bad on the way, or we get laid up by bad
weather for a long time on the way to Petchora, we can go up the river,
I hear, to a place called Ust Zlyma, and from there go overland to
Archangel. It is about two hundred or two hundred and fifty miles
across, and we could walk that in ten days. I am quite sure that we
should not be suspected of being anything but what we look; and at
Archangel there is sure to be a British consul, and he would put us up
to the best plan of getting out of the country. However, there will be
plenty of time to see about that as we get on."
The wind fell on the morning of the fourth day, but it would be some
hours before the sea would have gone down sufficiently for them to make
a start. Godfrey again went out shooting, this time accompanied by Luka.
Godfrey was as fortunate as he had been before, shooting three
capercailzie and nineteen grouse; while Luka brought down with his
arrows four capercailzie, which he found sitting on stunted trees. On
their way back to the boat they collected a great quantity of eggs, and
came upon a rabbit warren.
"Do not shoot," Luka said, as Godfrey cocked his gun, "it will frighten
them all into their holes. If you will go on with the dog, I will lie
down here and will bring you as many rabbits as I can carry."
Two hours later he came down to the tent with two dozen rabbits he had
shot. After cooking two of them, and giving one to Jack as his share,
they packed up all their belongings and again took to the canoe. They
used their paddles until round the cape, and then heading westward
hoisted their sail, for what wind there was was still from the north,
and the help it afforded was sufficient greatly to reduce the labour of
paddling. They kept steadily on, one or other taking occasional snatches
of sleep. But with this exception, and that of the time spent by Luka in
cooking, they continued to paddle until, forty hours after starting,
they reached Cape Golovina, passing between it and Beloc Island. They
did not make the halt they had intended under shelter of the cape, for
the weather was fine, and Godfrey wanted to take advantage of the north
wind as long as it lasted. Once round the cape they headed nearly due
south, and the wind freshening a little, drove them along merrily, and
they were able to cease paddling, and to take a fair proportion of sleep
alternately.
Luka was now getting more accustomed to the management of the sail, and
no longer feared an occasional jibe, and night and day--if it could be
called night when the sun never set--they continued their voyage along
the coast of the Yamal Peninsula. At the end of the fourth day the wind
freshened so much that the large sail was taken down and the
leg-of-mutton sail substituted for it; but as the wind continued to
rise, and the sea to get up fast, Godfrey began to look out for some
spot into which to run for shelter. The coast was very indented and
broken, and in two hours they passed the mouth of a deep bay into which
the boat was at once directed, and was presently moored under the
shelter of its northern bank.
"She is a splendid sea-boat," Godfrey said. "If it wasn't for the boat
in tow I should not mind what weather I was out in her."
Their stay was of short duration, for in a few hours the wind sank
again. "I don't think it is done yet," Godfrey said when they were
beyond the shelter of the bay. "I fancy it will blow up again presently;
still we may as well push on. I think it is rather more from the east
than it was."
For the next twenty-four hours, however, there was no very marked change
in the force of the wind, but it had now veered round to the north-east.
"We are getting well down now," Godfrey said. "We have been sailing for
five days, and we have certainly been running a good three miles an hour
from the time we rounded the cape. So we are three hundred and fifty
miles down. I should say we must be entering Kara Bay."
"Very bad weather coming," Luka said looking back.
Godfrey turned round. A heavy black cloud was sweeping up with a misty
line below it.
"By Jove, you are right; that is a big squall and no mistake. There is
no bay to run to here, Luka, and we could not get there in time if there
was. We must do as I talked about. Quick, lower the sail down, there is
not a moment to lose. No, wait until I bring her up head to the wind.
Now, then, down with it. Now unstep the mast, lash that and the boom,
the other sail, and its spar together; that is the way." And with their
joint efforts the work was accomplished in a couple of minutes. "Now,
then, fasten this rope to your end, Luka; I will tie the other end to
mine. That is right. It is long enough to make a good big angle. Now
fasten the head-rope to the middle; be sure it is put in the middle,
Luka. That is right. Now, launch it overboard."
The work was done as quickly as it is described, and in three minutes
from the time the mast was lowered the canoe was riding to the floating
anchor.
"Now then, Luka, on with the apron."
"Shall we sit up?"
"No; we will lie down, cover up the holes, and lash them carefully when
we are in. It is going to be a drencher, and it is of no use our getting
wet through to begin with. We could not do anything with the paddles."
They had scarcely made themselves snug when, with a roar, a deluge of
rain fell on the deck and cover, and a moment later even this sound was
partly deadened by the howl of the wind. Although their heads were close
together, Godfrey felt that it would be utterly useless to make any
remark. He felt under no uneasiness, for, with their weight well down
and anchored head to sea, he felt sure that the light canoe would ride
over anything like a cork bottle. The motion of the boat rapidly
increased, but she herself rode lightly over the waves. As these
increased the jerking of the boat behind at her rope became more and
more violent, and the canoe quivered from end to end with the shocks.
"This will never do," Godfrey said to himself. "The boat will pull the
stern out of her. It will be an awful loss to cut her adrift, but it
can't be helped."
He unlashed the fastenings of the cover of the circular hole above him,
reached his hand forward and got hold of Luka's paddle, and passed it
with his own out through the hole. Then he sat up himself. Confident as
he felt in the canoe, he was almost frightened at the wild aspect of the
sea. The wind was literally howling, driving the rain before it with a
force that stung Godfrey's neck as it struck it. He got out a strip of
deer-skin lashing, of which there was a supply always close at hand
under the deck, lashed the paddles together, and then, leaning aft,
lashed them at the centre firmly to the tow-rope. Then with some
difficulty he got out his knife and cut the rope close to its fastening;
the paddles flew overboard, and the boat drifted rapidly astern, the
drag of the paddles being, as Godfrey observed with satisfaction,
sufficient to keep her head to wind. Then he wriggled himself down
underneath the apron again and lashed down the cover of the hole.